In the article loading machines and specifically in bottle handling machines, bottles are typically conveyed on a conveyor in a commingled manner. It is often necessary to separate the articles into aligned parallel rows for further conveyance of the articles to a packing station. At the packing station the bottles are often packed in the containers which are partitioned. The separation of the articles or bottles into parallel rows by indexing means facilitates the packing of the bottles into the containers or cartons. Aligning of the commingled bottles into parallel rows is a problem to which considerable attention is given in the bottling and canning industry.
Prior bottle handling machine such as the case packing machine shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,481,108 and 3,555,770 use a plurality of parallel spaced guide rails for separating a commingled group of bottles into aligned parallel rows. Often, however, the bottles become tilted on the conveyor and fall over in front of the guide rails, causing the bottles to jam up in front of the guide rails and requiring the stopping of the conveyor and repositioning of the bottles in an upright position by a machine attendant. U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,195 discloses cone shaped guide members which wedge the tilted bottle into an upright position so that they may be guided individually into parallel rows between the space rails.
Swing arm article guiding chutes have been disclosed for use on bottle loading packing machines to feed the bottles into lanes. One proposed swing arm device was manufactured by Vickers Miller/Hydro Manufacturing Company of Benbridge, Ga. To swing the chute, optical sensors activated electrical solenoid switches which, in turn, control an electric motor to swing the chute across the conveyor. A piston rod operated by an air cylinder provides a gate to hold the leading bottles in the chute until a lane is reached. The optical/solenoid control swing arm device is complicated and expensive owing to the electrical wiring and other electrical elements required.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,745, there is disclosed an apparatus for aligning and feeding articles upright on an article loader machine. In this particular device, a guide chute is utilized for directing the articles into a particular lane. The number of articles being fed into a lane are under control of a computer and upon reaching the desired number of articles in that particular lane, solenoid valves are activated to control the operation of a plurality of air cylinders which index the guide chute to a particular lane. During the indexing operation, jaws which are manipulated by pneumatic cylinders are used for gripping the articles to hold the articles within the chute. There is also provided another article engagement means which engages an upper portion of the article such as the neck of the bottle so that the bottles are held upright when the lower body portions of the articles are engaged by the contoured jaws during the indexing operation. While the jaws 92 and 94 do secure the foremost article in the chute in a positive manner as a result of their arcuate inner surface, when the chute is feeding articles in one of the extreme side lanes, there is very little control of the bottle between the end of the guide chute and the entrance to the particular lane where it is being fed. Another problem with the article loading device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,745 is that it must be adjusted to accommodate various sized articles and if due care is not taken while making this adjustment, then there will be malfunctions during this indexing operation.
Accordingly, an important object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for feeding a predetermined number of articles into parallel lanes and during the indexing operation between lanes, the articles are positively held in place.
Another important object of the present invention is to provide an article retaining means for a guide chute wherein the lead article is positively held at a precise location during the indexing mechanism and the same article retaining means is used for guiding the articles into the lanes.
Still another important object of the present invention is to provide a simple and relatively uncomplicated guide chute for articles which can be readily changed for substituting a different guide chute having different dimensions.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a reliable and relatively simple apparatus for aligning articles in parallel rows.